Rugang Zhang, Ph.D.

Rugang Zhang, Ph.D.

The Zhang laboratory studies the mechanisms that underlie how normal mammalian cells age and how tumor cells evade the process and become transformed. In particular, his laboratory is interested in how alterations in epigenetics—heritable changes that affects gene expression without changes in the underlying DNA sequence—lead to the evasion of the aging process during tumor development. Understanding these mechanisms could lead to novel strategies for developing cancer therapeutics by forcing tumor cells into the aging process. His laboratory primarily focuses on ovarian cancer, which ranks first as the cause of death for gynecological cancers in the developed world.

Born and educated in China, Zhang received his Ph.D. degree from the Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2002. He did his post-doctoral training at the Institute for Cancer Research, Fox Chase Cancer Center, where he became an Assistant Professor in 2008. Zhang joined the Wistar Institute as an Associate Professor in 2012. He is also an adjunct Associate Professor at University of Pennsylvania.

Wistar Today

Quicklinks:

Sign up for our newsletter:

Please leave this field empty

Featured Image: Horner Brass Microscope

The microscope in the image belonged to William E. Horner, M.D., a collaborator with Caspar Wistar, M.D., in the early 1800s.

Dr. Horner, a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, was a pioneer of the use of microscopes in anatomical and medical research. He authored Special Anatomy and Histology, a seminal text on the subject.